An introduction to the legends of Saints Thaïs and Pelagia, together with critical editions of the five Castilian redactions. The legends of the holy harlots, Thaïs and Pelagia, are two of the most controversial accounts of female sanctity to have circulated in Spain during the Middle Ages. In this book, which reviews the origin and development of theircults, the author reconsiders the relationships that have traditionally been thought to exist between them and three of the other so-called prostitute saints: Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, and Mary the niece of Abraham. This is accompanied by an evaluation of the five Castilian versions of the two legends and their Latin sources, followed by a reading of their thematic and structural significance, with particular emphasis paid to the ways in which the twowomen renounce their sins and embark on the slow and agonizing path of redemption. The book is completed by critical editions of the five Castilian versions. ANDREW M. BERESFORD lectures in Spanish at the University of Durham.

First comprehensive investigation of the major significance of female sinners turned saints in medieval literature.

This book examines one collection of saints' lives, or sanctorals, and the twenty-five female saints witnessed therein. Included in the study are transcriptions of twenty-two previously unedited lives.

The Laughter of the Saints examines this rich carnivalesque tradition of parodied holy men and women and traces their influence to the anti-heroes and picaresque roots of early modern novels such as Don Quixote.

Harlot or Holy Woman? presents an exhaustive study of qedešah, a Hebrew word meaning “consecrated woman” but rendered “prostitute” or “sacred prostitute” in Bible translations. Reexamining biblical and extrabiblical texts, Phyllis A. Bird questions how qedešah came to be associated with prostitution and offers an alternative explanation of the term, one that suggests a wider participation for women as religious specialists in Israel’s early cultic practice. Bird’s study reviews all the texts from classical antiquity cited as sources for an institution of “sacred prostitution,” alongside a comprehensive analysis of the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia containing the cognate qadištu and Ugaritic texts containing the masculine cognate qdš. Through these texts, Bird presents a portrait of women dedicated to a deity, engaged in a variety of activities from cultic ritual to wet-nursing, and sharing a common generic name with the qedešah of ancient Israel. In the final chapter she returns to biblical texts, reexamining them in light of the new evidence from the ancient Near East. Considering alternative models for constructing women’s religious roles in ancient Israel, this wholly original study offers new interpretations of key texts and raises questions about the nature of Israelite religion as practiced outside the royal cult and central sanctuary.